


This Life of Ours

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, F/F, Post-Episode: s06e16 The Thanatos Guild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Laurel is resurrected at the beginning of Nyssa, Thea and Roy's mission and slowly acclimates to a new life and a new love.
Relationships: Nyssa al Ghul/Laurel Lance, Roy Harper/Thea Queen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	This Life of Ours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missourielephant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missourielephant/gifts).



> This idea came from a kiss prompt missourielephant gave me a while ago. Many thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy it!

Ever since she’d woken in a cave with a blanket draped around her and a floral taste in her mouth, Laurel’s life had become something far different from what she had always expected. Nyssa’s hands clutching the blanket in place and her teary, shame-faced look were the first and only things she’d been able to truly process as her friend had choked out, “Please, forgive me this selfishness.”

She had quickly been filled in on the intervening years between her death and her resurrection. The changes to their world, the new Pits, the mission Nyssa had recruited Thea and Roy for, who had stood back against one wall waiting as Laurel had come to grips, then one by one had moved in to hug her.

“So are we going home now?” She’d asked, heart sinking at the uncomfortable looks on their faces.

“I’m sorry, you can’t,” Thea had told her. “There’s already a Laurel at home.”

That had led to the explanations about her doppleganger, how her father had taken her on as a project of sorts to become a new daughter to him, how everyone in Star was being forced to pretend that Laurel was their friend when in reality she had hurt them in ways Laurel couldn’t even imagine being capable of.

“I could not stomach seeing her wearing your face and working for that man who stole Oliver’s child,” Nyssa had said, and dimly Laurel had noted that she had stopped referring to Oliver as her husband. Good, Laurel had hoped her friend would one day be able to leave all the trappings the League had tried to place on her behind. “When I learned of the other Pits and that Merlyn’s loyalists were seeking them, I knew I needed to destroy them. But… I could not bring myself to do so without returning you to me — to us.”

“And I agreed,” Thea had added, with Roy nodding beside her.

“It is my worst hypocrisy. I am sorry,” Nyssa had repeated.

“Hey, I’m not upset.” Laurel had risked leaning forward, wrapping her damp arms around her friend and hugging her for the first time. Nyssa had stiffened for a moment, then melted into the embrace. “I just don’t know what happens now.”

In the end, she had chosen to join Nyssa, Thea and Roy in their mission to destroy the other Pits before those who remained loyal to Merlyn did something stupid like bring him back to life. If there was one spot of good news from the time since she had died, there was that at least.

She struggled with homesickness for what felt months, always worried about the city and what attack might be coming for it while she abandoned it. She wondered what the other Laurel might be doing to her reputation, what people would end up thinking of Laurel Lance years down the line and how much of it would really be because of her. She listened to Thea talk about the wedding between Oliver and Felicity and how suddenly it had happened after Barry’s to Iris, then excused herself to cry a little before bed because she had wanted it for him, yes, but  _ God _ did it still hurt.

It worsened when the news reached them of her father’s violent death. The Pit they had used to revive her had already been destroyed, and Merlyn’s followers were hot on the trail of the next one. There would be no time for her to sneak into the city and retrieve her father’s body, no chance to restore him to life the way she once had her sister — a sister who still believed her to be dead.

She did her best to hide these feelings whenever Nyssa was near, hard to do since most nights they shared a cheap motel bed and most days they were each other’s main source of company, Thea and Roy often finding time to themselves trying to catch up on the missing years. Laurel knew that Nyssa felt guilty, as if she were responsible for cursing Laurel to some sort of half-life when in reality it was her own bad luck that her doppleganger had gotten stuck on their Earth and decided to fill in a vacancy. She wanted to be alive more than she wanted her old life, and so she didn’t want her friend thinking her ungrateful for giving her that back. They were all the other truly had left, really. Thea had quietly informed her that Sara was seeing other women, and she was sure even if no one had told her directly that Nyssa knew. There wasn’t really a good time or way to ask her about how she was feeling, and oddly enough, Nyssa no longer seemed to bring up Sara with the frequency she once did, not even mentioning the word ‘beloved’. She had to really be suffering that heartbreak.

Some nights the loneliness they both existed in seemed so heavy in the air between them that it threatened to choke or smother them. The rhythmic thumping of the bed against the thin walls of the room next door — sometimes Thea and Roy’s, sometimes not — was like a knocking at the back of her mind. A reminder that, no matter that she’d been given another chance at life, she wasn’t getting any younger. She had wasted her youth, and someday would be all alone if nothing changed. She wondered if Nyssa had the same thoughts and fears. She wondered if she was crazy for thinking that it would be less lonely if Nyssa wasn’t in love with her sister. She wondered if she were foolish for only now realizing she’d been thinking the wrong person was the love of her life when he couldn’t even love her back.

At the next Pit, Laurel almost died again.

It wasn’t as close as with Darhk. Just that, had Nyssa not dove into her, knocking them both down and out of the path of an arrow fired by a woman Thea had told her was called Athena. For a moment, Laurel gazed into Nyssa’s eyes as her friend laid atop her with blazing eyes and parted lips, then they both jumped at Roy’s shout of, “It’s rigged to blow, come on!”

They all managed to make it out in time and lose Athena and her group in the mountains. Laurel ran until her sides hurt, until she didn’t think she could make another step, and then she grabbed Nyssa’s hand to stop her, too.

“What is wrong?” Her friend asked, looking her over as if thinking she might find an unnoticed wound.

Laurel shook her head, barely able to rasp out a, “Nothing. I just didn’t thank you right.”

Nyssa’s brow barely had time to furrow in confusion before Laurel captured her lips in a kiss that was more about gasping shared air than anything else. Yet she felt Nyssa’s mouth move in response against hers, and when the kiss ended, they simply leaned into the other, neither pulling away as if they could simply stop the world for a moment by closing their eyes.

“I was hoping—”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Laurel murmured. Nyssa hadn’t been pining away for Sara silently. She never did that. She was always upfront with her feelings, demonstrative with her love in a way Laurel had always admired, a way that a selfish part of her had always wanted for herself, never dreaming that she had it.

They kissed again, this time slower, sweeter. There was time; their whole strange, shared life together. No longer did the journey feel like a lonely one.

“Hey, are you two coming?” Thea called from up ahead, just out of sight.

Laurel turned towards the sound. “Yep!” Reaching down, she took Nyssa’s hand. “Come on.”

For the first time in many nights, Laurel couldn’t wait to get back to their motel room.


End file.
